Leslie Sanford has released Introduction to Subtractive Synthesis, a 30 minute tutorial that teaches you what subtractive synthesis is and how synthesizers that use subtractive synthesis work.

Introduction to Subtractive Synthesis is a great video if you are new to synthesizers. You’ll learn the basics that will give you a strong foundation to build upon. For those at a more advanced level, you may still find some nuggets here and there that will make the video worthwhile.

Introduction to Subtractive Synthesis coveres

Oscillators

Waveforms

Transposing and detuning

The “beating” effect

Filters

The cutoff frequency

Lowpass, highpass, and bandpass filters

Resonance

ADSR Envelope

The segments that make up the ADSR envelope

Key tracking

Note velocity applied to envelopes

LFOs

Vibrato

Basic Modulation Routings

Introduction to Subtractive Synthesis is available in MOV and WMV format for $15 USD. Some excerpts are available on the product page.